EFFECT OF PROCESS NONLINEARITY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF LINEAR-MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROLLERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE OPERATION OF A FLUID CATALYTIC CRACKING UNIT

One possible approach to developing processes that are environmentally friendly and economically competitive at the same time involves the;e ffective use of modern control technology to enable the operation of t he process below the environmental constraints but close to them. Howe ver, often due to nonlinearities in the process, the performance of li near control strategies degrades as the system is operated close to co nstraints. Addressing these issues in the context of the specific proc ess of fluidized bed catalytic cracking is the motivation behind the p resent paper. Such a study can help in the understanding of how proces s nonlinearity might restrict the effectiveness of linear control stra tegies and thus provide motivation for nonlinear strategies.